This Is the Night

by Jonah C. Sirott

  The notes were from an Eric lecture a few days ago on whether a government that claimed roots in participatory democracy could even legitimize the concept of the Registry. Basic stuff to their counterparts in Western City North, Lorrie thought, but at least he wasn’t leading them into a cherry-picked world of ill-sourced Fareon facts. Even so, the underground papers—at least the ones Lorrie read—were jammed full of the kind of stuff that Eric was presenting as new and radical. Lorrie knew that resisters throughout the Homeland had tried to make similar arguments in court only to have judges strike down this line of thought en masse. But because the volunteers around her seemed so excited—“someone will definitely want to reprint this soon”—Lorrie dutifully did as she was asked and circled a few places that needed commas, made note of a dangling modifier, combined several sentences with participial phrases, cut down on one too many conjunctive adverbs, and changed an “affect” to an “effect.”

  “Whoa,” said Susan when she handed the paper back. A frown hung on Susan’s face, and her forehead was puckered.

  “What?”

  “This isn’t what I was asking, Lorrie.” Susan stared into the paper. “This is a joke, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ideas, Lorrie.” She waved the paper over her head. “I wanted to know what you thought about the logic, whether the ideas progressed in a reasonable order. You know how Eric is: introductions at the end, conclusions in the beginning.”

  “Oh.” Lorrie reached out her hand. “As a matter of fact, I do have some thoughts in that regard.”

  “I don’t know.” Susan made no move to return the sheet. “I really don’t like what you did here. This is not an attitude I like.”

  “Grammar?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Lorrie. You’ve really got to drop all this stuck-up crap.”

  Lorrie knew she shouldn’t get drawn in to a battle on this. Intelligible messaging was the least of the Center’s problems. She took a deep breath in. “I’m just trying to understand. You think it’s stuck-up that I repaired a sentence or two?”

  “Repaired? Listen to yourself! It’s like you think you have some sort of patent on speech.”

  Oh boy. Larger goals be damned, Susan needed a quick refresher in basic communication. “The sentence you’re talking about barely meant anything.” Lorrie wheeled her chair closer to Susan in order to point out one of the more egregious errors. “It was near gibberish. Listen: ‘After counseling resisters all day, a soft bed seems a welcome sight.’ It’s a dangling participial phrase. It should read—”

  “Just stop.” Susan rolled her chair backward, clutching the paper to her chest. She breathed in, pushed out her cheeks, and sucked them in again. “What you’re doing right now, this is Homeland Ideology in action.”

  The most hurtful insult one could speak at the Center, and Susan had spoken it to her. A white-hot accusation, a slash to her cheek with a sharp blade. “Communicating clearly is Homeland Ideology? Understanding each other makes me a Homeland representative?”

  “The message isn’t in the construction.” Susan had rolled as far away from Lorrie as she could, back toward her desk. She grabbed a blank piece of paper from a stack piled in front of her and began to write rapidly. “Here,” she said, extending the paper toward Lorrie disdainfully.

  broun doun renoun toun hewed

  “What? I can’t make any sense of this.”

  “Fine.” She grabbed the paper back, hunched over, and scribbled again.

  Tear tayre tare

  “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

  “Don’t you get it?” She peered at Lorrie with wet, frustrated eyes. “Way back when, back before all this, before the Homeland, when someone wanted to write a book, they just took some old sheepskin and printed whatever they wanted in whatever way they felt like. And people understood, you know?”

  “So?”

  “It’s all just another weapon, these rules of yours, in the name of propaganda and obtusification.”

  “That’s not even—”

  “Just look at the history,” Susan continued. “Rich people buy up all the land, print up dictionaries, and lo and behold, Homeland Ideology.”

  “You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” Lorrie’s fists were clenched and her skin felt hot.

  “How dare—”

  “Ladies, ladies,” Lorrie heard Eric say. It was lunchtime, and he wore his high boots, pigskin gloves tucked beneath his armpit. “Wow. Look at you two go. Did I interrupt something?”

  Immediately more heads poked around the corner. A small semicircle of counselors on break shuffled into the back room to see what the commotion was all about.

  “I was just trying—”

  “The girls are at it again,” said Doug. His eyes were glazed and messy.

  “Caged heat,” said a scratchy-voiced counselor Lorrie had never spoken to.

  Susan gave a hard look to a worn square of linoleum beneath her feet.

  “Fuck off,” said Lorrie.

  “Calm down. I just wanted to ask you girls a question,” said Eric.

  “Yes?” Lorrie said.

  “Fire away,” said Susan.

  “But maybe I need to let you relax first.”

  “Ask the fucking question, Eric,” said Lorrie.

  “Maybe you two could kiss and make up,” said Doug. “A nice big tongue kiss to tell each other you’re sorry.”

  The flock of counselors swayed and tittered.

  “Yeah, kiss!” said Scratchy Voice.

  “Damn the sodomy laws!” said his friend.

  “There are no sodomy laws,” cried another. Laughs all around.

  Lorrie could recognize she was in the thick of a singular moment. There was an opening here, an invitation to act in a manner that would enlighten the men around them, de-escalate the situation, and bring her critique of the Center to the forefront. But before she could act, she watched as Susan leaned over and yanked the cord of her massive radio from the wall. Bending her knees and lifting, she wrapped both arms around the heavy machine. “All I was doing was trying to help!” Susan screamed.

  “What the fuck?” said Eric.

  Susan released her grip. As the radio crashed to the floor, an explosion of parts scattered on the stained tiles below. Susan turned the corner, walked through the lobby, and stomped out of the double glass doors.

  “Whoa,” said Doug. His pupils had expanded ferociously, the dark circles dull and flat.

  “What’s the deal?” said the scratchy-voiced counselor.

  “She’ll be back,” said Eric, his round head shaking. “Some people.”

  “That was a good radio,” another voice said.

  “Crazy bitch,” said Doug.

  Everyone laughed, and Lorrie heard herself joining in. The sound of failure.

  As the counselors shuffled away, Lorrie went and got a broom and a dustpan. There was no way anyone could fix that radio, so she just tossed the smallest parts into the trash. Most of the insides had fallen out, so she left the husk to rest in the corner where it wouldn’t bother anyone. Her stomach told her it was lunchtime, but Lorrie knew there would be a line of men in front of the Center, all of them with no idea what to do next. Was anything in this place helping those men?

  She tried to push the question away, but some part of her knew that if a question was worth asking in the first place and no answer came, wasn’t it worth it to ask again?

  16.

  The dance is tonight. Not one girl from the sister school has agreed to go with Alan, but then again, he had not managed to ask anyone, either. He reminds himself that people who have not challenged themselves should not be disappointed when their goals stay unmet. Nonetheless, he is.

  Tomorrow, all fourth-years will receive their assignments from the Registry. The boys will hold their sealed envelopes up to the light, a few of them drunk from some homemade cider they have saved for just this occasion, thei
r eyes squinting in the shafts of sunlight, all hoping that they are the ones offered a job as a cook or driver. But that day has not yet come. For there is still tonight. And tonight is a dance. And at a dance, anything can happen.

  Months ago, the boys filled out their forms. For those in Majority Group, Alan has read, the Registry form is a paper of possibilities. Maybe you’ll be lucky, the form says to these boys, maybe you won’t have to fight. But the pamphlets have spoken to him, and now he knows: for Homeland Indigenous, for graduates of the School, the form is different, not a matter of if, but instead a circling shark, hungry and biding its time, sure to strike just as soon as it’s ready.

  From his bed, Alan had watched as Gad’s pen attacked the thicket of printed boxes. Weight. Height. Few of the questions on the paper left room for possibility. And then Gad paused. Name and Address of Person Who Will Always Know Your Address.

  Gad had looked at Alan. A slight nod.

  Both of them knew then what they know even better now: the real is getting closer.

  Priests and nuns roam through the crowd, demanding light and space between dancers and catching each other’s eyes in glances that say they hope these kids aren’t the future. From Alan’s perch on the wall, he spots Gad, toes pivoting, heels rising, his entire body gliding above the gymnasium floor in perfect agreement with the music. A glistening nun slides a wedge beneath the steel door; the burst of warm desert wind passes over the sweaty crowd unnoticed. Gad sways, flows, and bounces, looking truly comfortable as he twirls the girl in front of him around. The one place, Alan thinks, where Gad has more power than me.

  The generators are fired up; no loss of power can ruin the end-of-the-year dance. While the younger students sway and shuffle, Alan sees that the boys who are due a letter from the Registry in the morning dance with the most abandon. Except for him.

  Inches away from Gad, a girl Alan has never talked to but now realizes he has always loved does the same wild steps right back. The song rises to a scream, followed by a pause—a gap in sound that Alan is sure that every dancer on the gymnasium floor but him seems to have anticipated—until a blast of horns replaces the silence and every one of his whirling classmates lets out a joyful shudder that races up the length of their bodies until the entire crowd throws their heads toward the rafters and howls along.

  Other kids are with him, involuntarily pressed in a row against the wall. None of these boys are halfies. They’re all full-blooded Indigenous, no exceptions. Girls, it seems, even the Homeland Indigenous ones, find half-breed features irresistible. The thumps of Alan’s heart are unreasonably hard. Why can’t I just grab a girl and get out there? In every area of his life, he is strong, powerful, a leader. Only now, when girls and music are involved, does the world become lopsided. Small skirts, swaying thighs. On every female face he sees a smug look of separation. Their deepest desires are all aimed elsewhere.

  Across the gym, three girls sit in folding chairs. These girls are, Alan knows, the leftovers. The few erotic model types that dampen the socks of everyone are spoken for, their feathery bodies floating high above the dance floor. These final three are the clumsy, the uncomfortably zitty, and the thickly bespectacled. But through the crowd, Alan sees a fourth girl has joined them. He has spoken to her before. She is pleasant, she has a pretty smile on her longish face, and she is, he realizes, the deliverance from all his problems.

  He angles his way toward her, passing through waves of dancing couples, his throat dry, the five words forming in his throat. It’s not hard, he tells himself. Five words and she can end the misery.

  Closer, only steps away. Would you like . . . The words are there, ready. Two more steps and he’ll be right in front of her. Would you like to . . . He will need to be close for her to hear him over the music. He will need to lean in. Would you like to dance? Easy. And then, slanting in from a sharp angle, a much shorter boy steps in front of him. Whatever magic collection of words this tiny idiot speaks, Alan cannot hear. He watches the long-faced girl extend a shockingly perfect hand as he leads her toward the dance floor. Alan lets out a deep breath. Perhaps he can continue exhaling, he thinks, and deflate himself right into a pile of clothes on the floor.

  His face raw, he runs to the bathroom. Catching his reflection in the mirror, he cannot recognize the dainty, weak boy before him. Without thinking, his fist bursts out, hurricane-like, and smashes into the mirror. He can barely hear the shatter of glass over the music.

  Back in the dormitory, the murky, unnatural rhythms are still easy to hear, and he wants desperately to escape the heavy bass rising up in the chilly desert, bouncing his failure from one old building to another. Yes, that kid was an idiot, but such knowledge still leaves Alan’s insides pickled and hopeless, because that idiot also has a girl to dance with, a girl who despite her greasy face still has hair that shines under the bright light, tapered hips that accommodate a pair of hands perfectly, and heartbreakingly long legs that Alan has only ever glimpsed from knee to ankle. And she chose to dance with that half-breed mother-raper? Maybe Alan had made his approach from too far in the shadows. Maybe it was he who she had truly been looking for.

  Yeah, right. Logic, he sees, is piss-poor at sending shame on the run.

  On the hard bed of the empty dorm room, a woman comes to him. But it’s not any of the girls from the dance, all of whom had avoided eye contact as they awaited their chance to grind against someone with an appropriate percentage of Majority Group features. All those girls waiting for anyone, Alan thinks, but him.

  The Majority Group lady appears, and he talks with her.

  “How major?” Alan asks her in a whisper. He drapes the fleshy front of his elbow over the bridge of his nose; the more darkness, the better.

  “Incredibly major,” she says. “Make it wild. Show them who you are. You’re about to ship out anyway.”

  In the darkness, he can see small spins of color on her lips.

  “No one has to get hurt,” she says. “Not if you do it right.”

  “Gad should help me.”

  “He won’t understand. Gad’s a halfie, you know that.”

  Alan sits up. “Yeah, but you’re full-on Majority Group.”

  No answer. The woman is gone. Everyone else is still at the dance, swaying ecstatically around the gym at varying speeds. Now it’s just Alan and Hazel the guinea pig, the tiny rodent squeaking pitifully, both of them biting at their cages. Time to make it wild.

  17.

  The cabin was small. Fungus had begun to eat away at the wood where the logs scribed. After a few circles around the house, Joe could see it was a solid structure with good bones. With Benny in the back of a Registry truck, Joe had no key. Without Benny, there was no clear way in.

  He did a quick few paces around the perimeter. A moment of fierce relief that he was in a place where he could feel the wind and smell the dirt. All the windows were shut tight, locked. On the west end of the cabin, hidden from the lake, he came upon a small apple tree. The stalks were thin, dying even, and most of the apples had fallen to the ground, but there was one still on the branch, ripe and ready to go. A dazzling red globe with a small thumbprint patch of yellow, Joe stared at the apple with a violent, motherly love. No one would hurt this apple. He would not pick it, he decided, until Benny was here and the future was a vivid bloom. Only as he turned to walk away did he remember that Benny was in the hands of the Registry. The vision of the two of them sharing that apple faded as quickly as a morning dream. He left the apple untouched and went back to the front of the cabin.

  The door was solid. Joe gave it a few light kicks, then some harder ones. Nothing was working. Joe thought about his mother and father, harmonizing in church with their supreme confidence at the mysterious order of human events, the Young Savior smiling down at them. They exhibited a faith that didn’t allow for the loneliness and confusion he felt, and it crossed Joe’s mind that a state like his own would vault their heads off. They had never been placed in a situation beyond all doubt.
Though they thought they had all the answers, they had never truly needed them.

  Food, books, earmuffs, gloves. These were the things Joe needed. He looked around the lake. The lake was it. A lake and some trees. Mountains and rocks, stumps and leaves. And no Benny. As the stars emerged, the squawks of strange birds stabbed through the air. The chiming voices of the forest had, up until now, been soft and welcoming. But now, with the cold rising, the place began to reveal its true self.

  Benny hadn’t mentioned how cold it would be. A burst of icy wind clawed his face. The weight of what was happening was fully upon him. He could not get into the cabin; at this elevation, he could not stay outdoors for the night.

  A dark mass of clouds floated across the sky to take away Joe’s last rays of light. He put a hand in front of his face and watched the colors of his palm slowly dim to a fuzzy nothing. Thick coffee and warmed milk, a hot mug to wrap his hands around, where was anything he had ever wanted? Darkness settled in, and soon the objects around him faded. With the air cold and metallic, Joe went down to all fours. It was time to break a window.

  Knees steering, Joe kept his hands flat in front of him, palms in the dirt, and lightly tapped the ground in search of a good-sized rock. Frozen mud and flat grass slipped between his fingers, and for a brief, pleasurable moment, he saw himself as a little boy in his parents’ backyard, dragging his body over the soil of his mother’s peonies until his present life thrust itself forward in the sharp slice of a rock across his palm. A surge of blood poured from his broken skin. It hurt like hell. One palm was bloody, the other numb with cold. In the distance he saw a streak of light hurtle through the sky: a shooting star.

  Nobody knew Joe was out here but Benny, and Benny was gone, disappeared when he was needed most. The two of them had never been apart.

  In his animal position he could smell the wormy odor of the dirt beneath him. A picture of Benny’s head entered his vision, and Joe saw himself kicking it. Ten imaginary kicks to Benny for being himself, and five more to his flat head just for being someone Joe needed so much. Young Savior, help me.